The number of uninsured children in the Commonwealth declined slightly from 147,303 kids in 2013, noted the study, jointly released by Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children and Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. Colorado, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Rhode Island all posted significant gains in coverage as well.
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The findings show that expansion states saw a decline in the number of uninsured children of 21.7 percent, while the rate for states that didn’t expand Medicaid was 11.6 percent. That moves Kentucky from 28th in the nation to 15th in children’s health care coverage, according to Gov. Steve Beshear’s office.
In 2013, the state had a rate of 14.9 percent, or about 98,509 uninsured children, the report says. The ACA also removed premiums (money paid for health insurance) for many children who moved from CHIP to Medicaid in a few states.
Texas, meanwhile, is the state with the highest number of uninsured children at an estimated 783,938.
Joan Alker, the center’s executive director, says the state has worked hard to get here. Nationally, 4,396,536 children under 18 were uninsured in 2014, down from 5,234,332 in 2013.
Two years into the Affordable Care Act, clear regional patterns are emerging about who has health insurance in America and who still doesn’t. “That means when the parent learns about their own coverage opportunity they may also learn that their child is eligible”.
In Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, there was a decrease in the percentage of uninsured children similar to the statewide trend.
“This year it’s more of a state-specific story”, said Ed Coleman, the director of data and analytics at Enroll America, an organization devoted to signing uninsured people up for insurance.
Kolbi Young, a Utah Department of Health spokeswoman, said it’s true that when more parents get insured – either via Medicaid expansion or by enrolling in health plans via the federal exchange – more children get covered, too. As per the report, several people living in the Southern and Southwestern states are still uninsured. When we invest early and often in the health and well-being of our children, we are investing in the economic future of our commonwealth.
The uninsured map sure resembles an election results map, but instead of Republican districts they’re uninsured districts, with the highest numbers of uninsured located in the South and the Southwest, heavily Republican areas.
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Florida’s rate of uninsured of all ages remains far higher than the country as a whole, reflecting in part the disproportionate influence of jobs with low pay and no benefits.
